Religious Studies Head Attends Conferences in England and Germany

by Jane Terry

Professor Steve Berkwitz, new Department Head — Professor Steve Berkwitz, Religious Studies Department Head

Dr. Steve Berkwitz, Religious Studies Department Head, escaped the heat and humidity of the Ozarks earlier this summer and traveled to conferences in England and Germany.

The first was a two-day conference at King’s College in London that continued a collaborative project dedicated to rethinking the tradition of Theravada Buddhism. Dr. Berkwitz joined Christoph Emmrich for a session titled, “Intercultural Translation and Interlingual Practice.” This conference was sandwiched by two other one day events of related symposia on Burma and Cambodia.

The second conference was a smaller gathering at Ruhr-Universität Bochum on “Textual and Visual Dialogues Between Religions in South Asia.” Dr. Berkwitz’s talk, “To Protect and Praise the King: Gods in Sinhala Sandesha Poetry,” investigated further his interests in religion, power, and South Asian poetry.